Many companies have websites or social media pages but don’t maximize them for search engine optimization (SEO). So, first, what is SEO? Basically, it is all the techniques (paid and unpaid/organic/earned) that affect the visibility of your website in key-word search results that potential customers are conducting. Then, these potential customers will be better able to find your website or product and, hopefully, be converted into customers.

As you may know, this search hinges on algorithms created by the leading search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo!. Their bots or spiders “crawl” your website for key words then index your website in the search results based on a complex mathematical formula. This is called unpaid, organic or earned SEO.

Trick: If you create meaningful content that can be shared on your social media pages, mention others to increase the likelihood of shares, likes and saves. That way, you get in front of their followers, as well! Social media content also is indexed in search engine results.

What else can you do?

You also can increase the likelihood that potential customers will find your website with paid SEO or search engine marketing (SEM). This is where you gain traffic by buying ads or conducting pay-per-click campaigns on search engines through Google AdWords, Bing Ads or Yahoo Search Ads.